For a talented creative like you, self-promotion is a mission. Remember, there are clients out there who're just dying to find you!

You can't complete a mission with tunnel vision. Spend all your time promoting yourself digitally from the comfort of your home office? It's time to get out into meatspace. Pound the pavement with flyers and cards? Then it's time to get buzzy online.

Self-promotion isn't all spotlights and jazz hands. Sometimes, you need to light a scented candle and get introspective.

Once a year, set aside a quiet day for a thorough self-promotion audit. Are you getting where you wanna go?

Today's gift is an ANNUAL Self-Promotion Worksheet. You can certainly complete the checklist more than once a year, if you want to -- but take it easy, tiger. Freelancemeber isn't even halfway over yet!

Institute of Awesome Day 15
Earn More with Packages Worksheet

Lots of your clients end up needing the same types of work from you over time, right? And even if they don't hire you for all of it right outta the gate, they end up hiring you to do 'em later on. And if they don't, they should. Right? Right.

That's why you should make it easier on yourself (and your client!) by bundling up some of your services into nice, clean, tidy, profitable packages.

Not sure what that entails? Awesome, because today's free gift is a Package-Building Cheat Sheet!

Institute of Awesome Day 18
Stalkspiration - Inspirational Stalking!

A Mood Board is a trick well-loved by designers, interior designers, architects, writers, fashion designers, and just about any other visual profession.

Mood Boards can give you a shot in the arm, a kick in the butt, or get you in the mood for work… and help you keep track of your larger vision. Check out these examples. Then create your very own, with our handy dandy instructions!

Institute of Awesome Day 19
Get “Buffered” for Summer!

As your freelance business grows, do you feel yourself becoming, well... less and less human? It’s all fun and games until you realize it’s been several days since you took a shower, and you can’t even remember the last time you got a haircut. It’s time to slash and burn that hectic schedule before you burn out all together.

It’s time for a harsh dose of reality - and time management. This Sane Scheduler Worksheet will help you be a little bit more honest with yourself about where your time is going. Whether it’s a slow leak on emails or hemorrhaging on passion projects, there are plenty of places to reclaim some of those lost minutes (or maybe even hours) and put them back into your business (or gasp, your personal life!).

Institute of Awesome Day 20
The Dreaded Email Rabbit Hole

Email Bunnies are fluffy and cute, and may look harmless enough but don’t fall for it! That Email Rabbit from Hell will go straight to the jugular of your productivity if you drop your guard, even for a minute. Don’t fall victim to the seemingly harmless phrase “I’m just checking my email real quick...” you may never be heard from again.

Institute of Awesome Day 21
A Quest For Your One True Hourly Rate

Your True Hourly Rate is a hidden, mystical creature. A unicorn! But you want to find and pet the unicorn.

Figuring out exactly what it costs you to acquire a new client by tracking time spent swirling around your sales funnel from the very first point of contact, and you’ll find your True Hourly Rate unicorn coming out of the magical mist.

Petting unicorns is profitable, and full of glitter! You know what else glitters? Money.

It’s easy to get carried away at the start of an exciting project. Make sure you get a word in edgewise before getting carried away into the land of spec work, or worse, giving away some of your best ideas for free!

Try these Boundary-preserving Lifescripts next time you find yourself talking with someone about their next big idea, before it becomes your next big pro-bono project.

Institute of Awesome Day 23
A Letter to Your Future (Freelance) Self

Today’s gift is the gift that keeps on giving.

This fill-in-the-blanks letter will help empower the you of today with all of the confidence and attitude that the you of tomorrow has to offer. Your future Fortune 500 self will appreciate the scrappy - bootstrap aesthetic and hard work ethic that got you there... in a “you’re your own grandpa” sort of way.

Institute of Awesome Day 25
Summer Reading List for Freelancers

Fire up that barbecue and spice up your summer with some sizzling tips and tricks about freelancing and consulting! Take advice from people who have been there before and who can help you add some zest to your biz with these Top 10 Freelancing Must Reads.

Institute of Awesome Day 26
Mmm...linky goodness in the form of Linkbaitalicious Post Titles

You’ve spent every waking hour building your business. Pouring your energy into new, awesome marketing collateral. Your copy is witty and your graphics are slick. You have literally been killing it. Now where’s all that traffic you’ve been working so hard for? Where’s the Audience? Where are the incoming links and search traffic crowds?

We’ve got them for you right here.

Check out these Top 10 Most Linkbaitalicious Post Titles, and get writin’ already!

Institute of Awesome Day 27
No mo’ pro bono!

Volunteer work and passion projects are great - they can feed your creativity while energizing you through things you are excited about. What they don’t have to be is a drain on your wallet.

Finding ways for your non-profit clients to pay your fees outright is better for everyone involved. You’ll feel better about devoting the time and resources the project requires, and they’ll feel better knowing that you won’t leave them stranded up pro-bono creek without a paddle (or passwords to their online accounts) if and when you have to jump ship to pay the bills.

Institute of Awesome Day 28
Ideaphoria is contagious!

We’ve all been there - that "Eureka!" moment when you’ve had a stroke of genius that you just know will hit it big!

Is your next big idea the next big thing, or are you about to go bust? Before you go running off telling everyone and their brother's mother's first cousin about it, or worse, spending all of your time and resources developing it, put it through quarantine with today’s guideline checklist:

How To Tell If You’ve Got A Great Idea Whose Time Has Come... …or, uh, not so much.

Institute of Awesome Day 30
Institute of Awesome Summer School for Freelancers Graduation Day

Congratulations! You've made it to the end of the Institute of Awesome Summer School for Freelancers!

After the last day pizza parties, but before we hand out caps & gowns, it’s important to reflect on the past month and take a minute to let it all sink in. Learning anything new in thirty days is tough, especially when it comes to shaking up your business!

Today’s worksheet is designed to help you think about past lessons, organize next steps, and help motivate you towards future change. Enjoy!

Hi, I'm Amy. These are my battle scars.

Hi, I'm Amy. I designed Freckle Time Tracking because I tried every damn tool out there for running my freelance biz, and they all hurt. None of them respected the reason I wanted to track time: to run a better business. (Or they were so frustrating I couldn't bring myself to use them.) I solved that for myself and thousands of customers, along with my team who helped build Freckle.

Now I'm leading the charge for the Institute of Awesome for the same reason: to make it easy to run a kickass business. I freelanced for over 14 years, doing everything from $10-an-hour data entry work to $450-an-hour interaction design work. Every lesson in the Institute of Awesome Summer School? A lesson I learned for myself, the hard way. I'll never forget what it was like to struggle and feel alone. I want to help you improve your freelance business the easy way. That's why I do what I do.